Page 52 of The Fix

Rex stood at the front door of his grandfather’s house and looked around.

Updates to the flooring and the appliances and many other things needed to be made to bring the place into the current decade.

But he’d cleaned out, packed up, and recycled, and that morning he’d made six trips to the Goodwill.

There was a single box of photographs and odds and ends that he was going to take to his mom later.

It was good enough, he figured, for someone to see the potential and not feel overwhelmed by the amount of work involved in making the house into a home.

His work here was done.

And yet, it also wasn’t. He’d offered to help Cami go through the files she’d taken from her father’s house. And there was still a lot of information to sift through. But even that would only take so long. A week, perhaps, if they worked on it each evening after Cyrus went to bed.

He had another month before his job started, but he still had to find an apartment and get himself set up in a brand-new state he’d never been to before.

He’d planned to take the long route there, stopping and seeing some sights along the way .

.. maybe camping under the stars. He’d seen so many other places around the world, but he’d never really seen America.

And he wasn’t sure when he’d have another opportunity.

He’d been excited about that part of his move. And now, all he could feel when he thought about driving away from Aspen Cove was despondency.

He knew why that was, of course. He’d gotten attached to Cami and to Cyrus too. He felt ... responsible for them in some way that probably wasn’t entirely appropriate. It was just that they’d been through so much, and he was worried that it wasn’t entirely over.

He was also concerned about the fact that she’d gone to see Hollis.

She’d said she wanted to do it alone, and he could understand why, but he’d still gone to pick up the phone to check in on her several times before reminding himself he didn’t have that right.

Instead, he’d distracted himself with the last of the cleaning and trips to donate useful items.

He went into the bedroom he’d been using for the last few days—the room that shockingly still had a bed and a clean mattress under all the junk shoved inside the space—and pulled a clean pair of clothes from his duffel bag.

Just as he finished dressing, he heard tires on the gravel outside, and the purr of an engine.

He stopped and listened for a moment to be sure he was right and then walked into the living room and pushed the curtain aside.

His heart bounced, then took up a swift beat.

Cami. She was walking toward his front porch, expression unsettled, but when she saw him through the window, her face bloomed into a smile.

He dropped the curtain and went to the door and pulled it open.

God, he felt relief. Relief and happiness, just to see her, just to know she’d thought of him and wanted to see him too. He didn’t even care why.

Before he could say a word, she walked into his chest, embracing him.

He paused for only a moment before wrapping his arms around her, too, and pulling her as close as he possibly could.

“Everything all right?” he said into her hair, and she nodded, but she didn’t let go.

Instead, she turned her nose into his neck, and he was almost tempted to step away and tell her he needed to shower, but she seemed to like it there, if her sigh and the fact that she wasn’t moving of her own accord were any indication. He liked that too.

Yes, he would have slayed a dragon for her once upon a time, but now he’d slay a thunder of them.

He was fucked.

But right that moment, he couldn’t seem to care.

She dropped her arms with another sigh and stepped away. Her lips began to lift into a smile, but then it fell as she looked around behind him. “It’s all cleared out,” she said, and there was something in her voice, a sort of alarm.

He turned and looked at it as if she’d told him something he didn’t already know, as if he hadn’t just completed the last remaining chores as a way of distracting himself from his errant thoughts about her all day long. “Yeah. It’s done. And listed. I already got a few calls that I need to return.”

She stepped farther inside. “That’s great. It’s a nice place. I can see the potential now.”

“That was the plan,” he said with a small smile.

“Mission accomplished.” Their gazes held. He finally looked away.

“On the house front anyway. I’m still here another week at least.” He’d decided that apparently, without really thinking about it. He’d said it now—he couldn’t take it back. Not that he wanted to. “Plenty of time to go through those boxes ...”

“Yes. Thank you.” She looked around again, her brow knitted.

“So, ah, were you able to see Hollis?” He assumed Hollis hadn’t offered anything helpful, if anything at all. He knew that if he had, she’d have led with that and not the state of his house.

“Yes, I saw him. And yes, he’s still an egotistical prick. And no, he doesn’t deserve to have power of any kind, and I hope Virginia voters see as much.”

“Tell me,” he said, gesturing toward the couch that was amazingly clean, but only because it’d never actually been sat on but been a catch-all for stuff . A quick vacuuming to get rid of the dust, and it looked like new.

She sat down, and he did, too, and she brought her knee to the side as she turned his way. “I told him about Cyrus and the kidnapping. In a nutshell? He knows Cyrus is his son and is worried I’m going to go public in some way and bring controversy to his campaign.”

“So he does have motivation.” If Hollis had been surprised but ultimately decent and maybe even requested to meet his son, or asked if Cami needed anything, then that would be different. But he’d expressed the exact sentiment Rex had worried he would.

“To have had him kidnapped?” Her eyes drifted to the side for a moment.

“Yes, I suppose, but ... I honestly think he was shocked when he heard that he’d been kidnapped.

I don’t think he knew about it. He did receive the email from Cyrus and either convinced himself it was a prank, or actually believed it was.

Hollis was never a good liar because he never tried to be good.

He took it for granted no one would question him, so he didn’t bother to make himself seem believable. He hasn’t changed.”

“Well that helps.” He almost bit his own tongue.

It came across as bitter, and he didn’t want to remain resentful toward the guy.

It was just that hearing Cami bring up the teenage version of Hollis, the guy who’d made him feel so worthless when they were in high school, set him on edge.

Still. And he didn’t like that about himself.

It made him feel petty and small, his own feelings trapping him in the discomfort of youth.

Cami’s eyes lingered on him a moment as if she was trying to figure him out, and then she looked down and picked at the cuticle on her thumbnail. “On my way here, I got a call from Detective Mauro in California. They were able to identify the remains of the man who fell to his death.”

He sat up a little straighter. “And?”

“Apparently, he’s hired muscle. Well known in Oakland, California. The guy has a long rap sheet and just got out of San Quentin six months ago for armed robbery. The weapon they found near his body had the serial number filed off.”

“Did they mention any known connections?”

“They’re looking into that now, but I mean, they’re not likely to find anything, right?”

He sighed. “No. Guys like that don’t generally keep records.”

“The rental cabin is owned by a corporation that appears to be a shell company.”

He’d figured. And when they investigated that company, it would lead to another one overseas.

Eventually, they’d find themselves in some Bangladeshi rug store where the owner had been paid off to file paperwork.

There’d be no trace of anyone who’d set up the operation now.

“Did Detective Mauro say anything about the video camera in the room with Cyrus?”

“Just that there was a link to the feed on the guy’s phone. It was one of those prepaid ones, though, so not much else to access.”

Rex nodded. He knew he could assume any numbers that were in it were also from anonymous burner phones and had since been turned off.

Oakland, California. Someone had hired a goon close enough to drive to the location.

Why exactly they’d chosen that spot in the woods in Big Sur was a mystery.

Maybe this unknown person or persons had a number of locations set up for just such a circumstance.

The bars on the window indicated that it had a specific purpose, and that purpose didn’t have anything to do with communing with nature.

“What now?” he murmured, mostly to himself.

“The boxes,” she said. “It feels like all we have.”

He turned and looked at her, his gaze moving over her pretty face.

She was so beautiful to him. What was it about her features that set his heart on fire the way they did?

Maybe if he could figure it out—quantify it the way he was usually so good at—he could gain control over it so he didn’t feel mostly flattened each time she turned his way.

It feels like all we have. He moved his mind back to what she’d said about the boxes.

He agreed it was all they had, but not only as it pertained to the case they were trying to work through together.

Them. In general. And he didn’t like that.

He could admit it, at least to himself. But how could they have more without someone—namely him—getting hurt?

Maybe it’s worth it.

Cami sighed. “I should go.”